The leader of Belarus said Monday he will deploy a joint military task force with Russia near Belarus’s border with Ukraine. President Alexander Lukashenko said he’d agreed to the deal during a meeting last weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. Lukashenko announced the troop movements as he warned NATO not to station nuclear weapons in Poland, suggesting he may be preparing to allow Russia to deploy nuclear arms to Belarus.
President Alexander Lukashenko: “Military and political leaders of NATO and several European countries are already openly considering options of possible aggression against our country, including launching of a nuclear strike. … Tell the president of Ukraine and the other lunatics, if any of them are still there, that the Crimean bridge will seem to them like a walk in the park if they ever touch a single meter of our territory with their dirty hands.”